At Silvia in Woodstock, the kuri squash — a palm-sized, thin-skinned cousin of the pumpkin — is cooked in the ashes of an open wood-fired oven, thickly sliced and plated. Blackened skin and vividly pigmented tangerine curves taste sweet and smoky like potatoes pulled from autumn bonfires, its rooty flavor both concentrated and amplified. Seedy dukkah contrasts against spoonably soft flesh; tartness and heat from a spill of lime juice and coal-burnt paprika oil are cleverly wiped clean with fresh mint.

Another plate: This time fennel, fire-softened and sliced with intact core, is in the spotlight. Pale, singed leaves drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice have elevated anise sweetness that's grounded by the lower, savory notes from walnuts and shaved Parmesan. Now something more complex: Cold-smoked swordfish escabeche, a beautiful thing, is a subtle explosion with raw fish ceviched by the blood-orange citrus and shot with Thai chile oil and raw fennel shavings that curl up like Fortune Teller Miracle Fish.

You could dine at Silvia knowing nothing of its back story and be thrilled. Food, under the broad rubric of "New American," is a mindful feast: Ingredients left in natural states, sometimes intensified by fire, ash, brine, time (dry aged or fermented), sometimes simply combined in ways that cause sparks.

Better yet, it's presented without holier-than-thou attitudes, an excess of man buns or blasting music to make your ears bleed. In fact, the place is downright warm and friendly. Beards, tattoos, folks of all ages are quite at home. An elderly man perched at the bar looks as if he might remember the building's famed years as Joyous Lake, a macrobiotic cafe and music venue where legendary musicians played in the 1970s. Families with some of the best-behaved young children ever taken to dinner are, like me, fondling the fabulous green velvet banquettes that flank the barroom's spirulina-hued, art-clustered walls.

You might not know closely fostered farm relationships drive the menu or that farm-to-table here is more Eucharist adoration than lip service. But you'll likely tell. The sustainably farmed, GMO-free and cruelty-free ingredients are carefully and locally sourced, and a gleaming open kitchen is a metaphor for transparency with all elements of meal preparation on display. Preserved lemons and kimchi gently fizz and ferment under glass on open shelves. Hooks and spits for roasting and grilling meats dangle over flaming open wood-fired grill, and vegetables are pushed under soft gray ash and glowing coals.

The four owners — siblings Betty and Doris Choi and their husbands, Craig Leonard and Niall Grant — opened Silvia last July after upstate summers spurred a permanent move. Had I first told you that the executive chef and co-owner was active in the raw, vegan movement a few years back and co-authored "The Fresh Energy Cookbook," you might have preconceived ideas. But Silvia is not vegan — nor is it not. Doris Choi is disarmingly honest about her personal evolution from the strict vegan, raw diet to a more inclusive approach centered on connectivity to food and environment, and a return to primitive, open-flame cooking. "That was then, and this is now," she says; a vegan, raw diet, she feels, has "exclusive and elitist undertones."

What does make the leap from Choi's book to the vegetable-forward menu is a Dan Barber-esque awareness of vegetal flavors and use of citrus and bright herbs to enhance. Everything — daily stocks, ketchup, gochujang, you name it — is scratch-made. Primal cuts of meat are hung, aged and cut in-house. This kitchen crew is a creative bunch. Sodas and cocktails crafted from turmeric, beets and squash rinds and sweetened with rice syrup or date molasses are as much the output of the kitchen as the bar.

I pick Les Maou's Haut Les Coeurs, a natural red listed as a cinsault varietal, knowing it can handle the distinct flavors of creamy Thai curry and still pair nicely with my friend's roast meat. It works, layering on cinnamon spice and smoked-wood notes, but something about its robust fruitiness has me wondering. Though Les Maou, a tiny wine estate in the Ventoux appellation of the Rhone Valley, produces other cinsault wines, this dark berry beast is in fact 100 percent carignan, a characterful, unfiltered wine that's totally up to the job.

The menu bats for both teams: Strict vegans can munch on pan-seared Brussels sprouts with red chile-garlic sauce, a pile of blistered, glistening shishito peppers spiked with gochugaru red chile flakes that pinprick the tongue, and maybe a raw cashew Key lime pie for dessert. Meat lovers with a conscience can sink teeth into a grass-fed and grass-finished burger or steak, or pray for a Highland Farms venison special with pine and juniper jus.

The Chois' Korean heritage is on show in a bibimbap bowl featuring "clean" — that is, fish-free — vegan kimchi. Dirty it up with an optional topping of grass-fed barbecue beef or order more as a lettuce wrap starter: The thinly sliced beef is so fragrant with garlic and sesame it literally turns heads. There are salads that omnivores will genuinely want to eat: Kale and shredded Brussels with horseradish-mustard dressing, or a reconstructed Caesar with poached egg and shiitake mushrooms prancing about the escarole. Sadly it stayed an unfulfilled fancy after my longtime dining pal chose this moment to reveal her hatred of eggs.

We were enchanted before we stepped foot in the door. Light leaks invitingly from Silvia's dark-edged windows. Almost blacked out at night by its ebony stain (inspo from a visit to Iceland), the building seems to cling to its corner like a limpet on black rocks. The slushy drive — one hour from Albany to Woodstock — might sound too much like effort. It's worthwhile. And in warmer weather an expansive pergola-covered deck promises to be a road-tripper's tonic.

Dinner for two including two starters, vegetables, mains, cocktails, wine and a lone dessert — came to $219.60 with tax and 20 percent tip. Together a burger or salad with a cocktail would run under $30 before tip. Weekday happy hours (4 to 6 p.m.) and specials (20 percent off bottled wines every Monday, $12 burgers on Tuesday, and $1 oysters on Thursday) keep costs down.

Susie Davidson Powell is a British freelance food writer in upstate New York. Follow her on Twitter, @SusieDP. To comment on this review, visit the Table Hopping blog, blog.timesunion.com/tablehopping.